I want you to take off the mask, Erik, do you hear me? I want you to take it off right now.
-Luciana

I had reached up and pulled the castle of dreams down around him.

My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mortal imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain. . . . For as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love.

You must expect to make enemies."
"I never expect to make anything else," he said.

Is the mask magic?" he demanded with sudden, passionate interest.
"Yes." I bowed my head, so that our eyes no longer met. "I made it magic to keep you safe. The mask is your friend, Erik. As long as you wear it, no mirror can ever show you the face again."
He was silent then and when I showed him the new mask he accepted it without question and put it on hastily with his clumsy, bandaged fingers. But when I stood up to go, he reacted with panic and clutched at my grown.
"Don't go! Don't leave me here in the dark."
"You are not in the dark," I said patiently. "Look, I have left the candle ..."
But I knew, as I looked at him, that it would have made no difference if I had left him fifty candles. The darkness he feared was in his own mind and there was no light in the universe powerful enough to take that darkness from him.
With a sigh of resignation I sat back on the bed and began to sing softly; and before I had finished the first verse, he was asleep.
The bandages on his hands and wrists showed white and eerie in the candle-light, as I eased my skirts from his grasp.
I knew that Marie was right.
Physically and mentally, I had scarred him for life.

None of us can choose where we shall love...